Okay, so a while back I finally decided to go on a diet. It worked. I lost like 15-20 pounds. But I decided that I couldn't do this for the rest of my life, so I took a break from the diet, and then I did the diet again and lost another 15-20 pounds. And then there was the holidays and all that, and I didn't diet then, and now I'm going planning to diet for another two months or so, though officially the diet doesn't start until Sunday.

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For a few years now my mother has it in her head that she has some problem with gluten. I think that she does not have a problem with gluten, other than the problem that I have that I shouldn't eat as many cookies and such that I normally do. But, she keeps saying that she probably has this problem, and that she should do something about it.

Okay, I still don't think that she has a serious problem. If you look this up on the internet, the numbers range from less than one percent of us has a serious problem that would benefit from a gluten free diet to thirty-three percent of us should be avoiding gluten. But usually the experts saying 10-33% of us have a problem are trying to sell us something, so I'm thinking the less than one percent is more accurate.

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Anyway, if you think you have a problem with gluten you could a.) go to a doctor and have tests done and find out, or b.) just stop eating it anyway. This is not impossible. There are cultures that just don't eat bread and such and eat a lot of rice instead. There are people who just choose not to eat bread for whatever reason. There are now people on diets who don't eat grains at all, and these people do not seem to be falling over dead because of it.

Okay, mom, whatever, don't eat gluten. But it can't be that simple with her, she has to go buy some special gluten-free bread at the fancy store. Only she doesn't want to make a lot of trips to the fancy store. Okay, so how about buying a bread machine? I called and told her I'd found what appeared to be a new bread machine at the Goodwill for like fifteen dollars. But, she didn't want that either.

Okay, mom, whatever.

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So the diet I am on (sometimes, for like two months) is called The Virgin Diet (not what it sounds like). And part of it involves seeing if you have a problem with gluten. So I thought she would like the idea and gave her the important details of the diet like a year ago. Maybe she'd like to go on the diet with me?

No.

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Of course not. If she did that, she couldn't complain about maybe having a gluten problem.

Anyway, she does want to lose weight, even if she doesn't want to give up bread, doesn't want to go to a fancy store to buy better bread, doesn't want a bread machine, etc... So a while back she called and asked about the vegetable part of the diet.

Eat two cups of vegetables. Every time you eat a meal that isn't a meal replacement shake, eat two cups of vegetables. Eat more vegetables if you want.

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Now, it does need a little more explanation. But I think most people know that in the diet sense, potatoes don't count as vegetables. (You can't eat two cups of french fries. Also, for a diet, deep fried anything is out.) And some vegetables don't count as vegetables because sweet potatoes count as a starch and beans count as a protein and so forth. I think it's good to remind people of that, but it makes sense to people. The only thing weird in this diet is that when listing vegetables they left of tomatoes (which I'm think was a mistake and after about a week I went back to eating tomatoes), you shouldn't eat a lot of carrots because of the sugar, and corn is totally forbidden because it's a grain and because GMO and a lot of other stuff.

Okay, eat two cups of vegetables that are not corn, not often a lot of carrots, not listed as something else like a starch or protein, and not deep fried. Also not with added stuff that isn't on the diet like bread crumbs, products containing corn, cheese or other diary, most salad dressings, and of course don't deep fry anything.

I'm not sure how this is confusing and needs a lot of explaining, though if you need the whole explanation, you could actually read the diet book.

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But somehow for my mother this does require a lot of explaining, and then she calls back twice to hear it again.

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Last conversation:

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What vegetables do you eat, and how do you cook them?

Most vegetables that aren't something obviously something else, not potatoes, not sweet potatoes, not a few odd things like winter squash, not a lot of carrots, and not any corn at all. Just pick some other vegetables and don't deep fry anything.

So what do you eat?

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I eat a lot of broccoli, and I think they just forgot to list tomatoes so I eat a lot of tomatoes. And I eat salad if I make my own salad dressing.

And how do you cook that? Do you stir-fry or saute?

Yes, usually. Or you can boil or steam. If you stir-fly use a tablespoon of healthy oil like olive oil.

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And you just eat broccoli?

I just mostly eat a lot of broccoli cause I don't like a lot of other things. But you don't have to eat broccoli if you don't want to. You can eat something else.

Like what?

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Like...I'm thinking of getting this thing that makes stuff like zucchini look like noodles. And then you could lightly cook them and eat them with tomato sauce.

I thought you can't eat squash?

No, I said that winter squash doesn't count towards the two cups of vegetables. But I don't like winter squash and never eat it anyway. Summer squash is okay.

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You mean like yellow squash.

Yes, mom, yellow squash is okay. Just don't deep fry it.

Well, I could eat yellow squash all day.

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Great, she can eat yellow squash all day.

Why isn't she already eating yellow squash all day? Why didn't she just start eating yellow squash all day a year ago when we first had this discussion about the diet?

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I got all kinds of other stuff to say about the diet, but I'll say that later. This was mostly just stuff about my mom.